Quartered and Drawn
/ Kim Beck

2008

Kim Beck, Quartered and Drawn, 2008

Views

Identifier

IWC.2008.348

Artist Statement

A grid is lightly drawn directly on the wall. Visitors are invited to select a card from the box. Each card contains a tiny portion of a larger (unseen) image and coordinates that correspond to the grid. Visitors are invited to draw their portion of the image on the wall. Drawing will occur throughout the exhibition. The pixels or discreet parcels of drawing gradually accumulate into a gridded (quartered) final image takes as its subject fences and prison sites, referring back to the title of the piece. Visitors serve as labor in literally completing the piece; without their work, the piece would not exist. Their relative servitude is mirrored back in the final image of a prison fence, which, in the context of this exhibition, serves to reflect the nature of robots and mechanical servitude, drudgery and forced labor -- as well as the way one unknowingly participates in the construction of these types of structures and situations.

About the Artist

Kim Beck grew up in Colorado and now lives in Pittsburgh where she works and teaches at Carnegie Mellon University. Beck works in a range of media such as drawing, print and installation to survey architecture and landscape. Meditations on weeded lots, street signs, gas station banners, pieces of lawn and sidewalk urge a reconsideration of the built environment, bringing the banal and everyday into focus.